The life of Sissieretta Jones (also known as the Black Patti) is highlighted this month in the latest issue of Rhode Island History, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Rhode Island Historical Society. Her picture, which appears on a Black Patti poster owned by the Library of Congress, is featured on the cover of the Summer/Fall 2014 issue (Volume 72, Number 2). My article, “Rhode Island’s Star Soprano: Sissieretta Jones,” is accompanied by thirteen photographs, two of which were recently made public by the University of Washington Libraries. One of them shows Sissieretta standing at center stage in a production by the Black Patti Troubadours, likely at the Third Avenue Theater, Seattle, December 1904.
My thanks to editor Elizabeth C. Stevens, Ph.D, for her skillful and thoughtful editing of my article, and to the Rhode Island Historical Society for helping to spread the word about this important African American soprano, who made her home in Providence, Rhode Island. Copies of the article are available from the Rhode Island Historical Society for $12.50, which includes shipping and handling (send email requests to order the journal to srees@rihs.org).
July 29, 2014
Maureen D. Lee
author of Sissieretta Jones, “the Greatest Singer of Her Race,” 1868-1933, published in 2012 by the University of South Carolina Press.